Always Pass on Good Advice
by cygnaut
Summary: In the midst of Days of Future Past, Charles realizes there's only one person who can talk Erik out of his terrible plans: himself.


Erik was awake all night, looking through the stolen diagrams and thinking. Now that Mystique's blood had been collected, he needed a new plan, and he couldn't rest until he had one. He had the germ of an idea, and while he wasn't sure yet if it would be possible, it was too elegant to be cast aside. He had always liked turning his enemies' weapons against them.

He was so distracted by studying the microfilm that it was several hours before Erik remembered his injuries. He put a hand to the back of his head and winced, feeling the crusted blood clotted in his hair. It was even more painful to clean up, the cut reopening and bloodying all of the thin white towels stacked in the hotel bathroom. It was more of a scrape than a cut; a whole section of his hair was missing, revealing the raw red tear where McCoy had bashed his head on the ground.

Erik found a surgical needle and thread in the first aid kit he'd lifted from an ambulance at the scene. There was a topical anesthetic as well, but Erik ignored it, setting to work without painkillers. There was only one mirror in the room, so he had to do it by feel, but that wasn't difficult. He had stitched up countless wounds over the years. It was a useful skill for someone who often went traveling in disguise and couldn't risk being discovered by his enemies after being injured during a mission.

Reflecting on his past only served to remind Erik how much better he used to be at assassinations. Granted, he was out of practice after ten years in prison. He'd tried to keep his skills up as best as he was able in a ten-foot square cell, but it was inevitable that he'd be out of shape. At least his powers had returned, strong as ever if not stronger. Years of practice manipulating magnetic fields and searching for the slightest charge or current had done him well. His fine control was better than ever, making it easy to guide the curved needle as it pierced his own torn flesh. His reach also felt more expansive, like he could lift a whole building if he put enough effort into it.

Erik was off his game for other reasons, of course, thanks to the combined distraction of seeing both Charles and Mystique for the first time in ten years. Neither reunion had gone as he expected. He didn't relish killing Mystique, even if he saw no way around it. At least he knew she would understand his reasoning, assuming they ever spoke again. Charles was an entirely different kind of distraction. It was difficult to see him so changed from the self-assured man Erik once knew. The Charles he remembered had taken such reckless delight in using his powers, showing off for the first time after a life of denial. It was hard to believe he could trade that away, even if the past few years had been difficult. It made Erik feel off-centered and strange, like a counterweight he assumed would always be there was gone. Erik rubbed the underside of his chin, feeling the tender spot where Charles had elbowed him in the face during the scuffle over Mystique.

Erik was still stuck in contemplation when a loud knock came from the door, startling him. It was too late for housekeeping, and Erik could think of no good reason why someone would be looking for him. He emptied his pockets of the various metal odds and ends he was carrying, a collection of bolts and ball bearings and screws floating behind him as he moved cautiously toward the door.

There was another loud knock, faster and more impatient this time. Erik could feel a metal belt buckle behind the door, rivets in two pairs of jeans, and—a wheelchair?

The door slammed open as the man on the other side tired of waiting, a hand punching through below the lock and ripping the security chain off the frame. Erik stepped back just in time to avoid getting hit in the face, and then Logan, the irritating man from the future, was busting through.

"I'm coming in, bub!" he yelled. "Make way."

"I gathered," Erik said. He kept one hand out and open at his side, the various metal objects behind him turning slowly in the air, ready to strike if necessary.

There was a cough from the hallway and Charles came into view, gingerly wheeling his way inside through the broken door. He coughed again and waved a hand to disperse some of the plaster dust in the air.

"How did you find me?" Erik asked. He was too good at hiding to be discovered this quickly, unless his disappearing skills were also rusty.

"_Cerebro_," Charles said, with the same edge of barely contained anger in his voice as he had on the plane.

A snide reply started to form in Erik's mouth, but then he realized what that must mean. He smiled instead, letting the objects floating behind him fall, a soft metal rain on the hardwood floor. He thought for a moment about his helmet, thousands of miles away and still locked somewhere in the Pentagon. "You have your powers back."

Charles looked away and let out a soft sigh. "I didn't have much choice in the matter."

"Not after you so royally screwed everything up," Logan added, nodding at Erik.

"Don't you have a horrifying dystopian future to get back to?" Erik asked. "Why are you still here?"

"Because my job isn't finished yet," Logan said, one hand tightening into a fist as his claws started to extend. "This can still be fixed, but we don't need you running around on your own making plans to throw a wrench in the works."

"What makes you think I'm planning something?" Erik asked.

Charles tapped his forehead and looked pointedly at the roll of microfilm on the coffee table. "I can feel the wheels turning in your head, Erik. Whatever you're planning, I can promise you it's a bad idea."

"How do you know it's a bad idea if I haven't even thought of it yet?" Erik asked, feeling petulant.

"Believe me," Logan said. "I've seen enough of your plans to know."

Erik bares his teeth at him. "I was looking for a way to hijack the sentinels. If they were to malfunction and threaten humans at a high profile event, that would be enough to turn public opinion against them."

"Huh," Logan said.

"That's actually not that bad…" Charles started.

"And then," Erik continued. "I could make a show of force at the same moment, revealing the true extent of our power and the helplessness of humanity. That might be enough to turn the future in our favor, to destroy the human will to fight before the war even begins."

"What? No!" Charles said, hitting his hands on the handles of his wheelchair in frustration.

"We're not trying to create a dystopia where _mutants_ are in charge," Logan said. "We're trying to avert it entirely! How did you miss the point so damn badly?"

"You're both assuming we can change things," Erik said. "But all you've done so far is confirm what I already knew. War is inevitable and mutants can't risk letting humans get the upper hand."

"That's not—argh, no, you know what?" Charles said. "I don't want to have this argument with you. There's someone else you need to talk to."

Erik opened his mouth to respond, but found he couldn't form words, an outside force stopping him. He could feel Charles' influence in his head, familiar and violating and welcome. It really had been much too long.

_Hello there_, Erik thought instead of speaking. _I thought you were never looking in my head again?_

_Desperate times_, Charles replied. "Logan, get over here."

Logan sighed and retracted his claws, cracking his knuckles before he walked over to Charles. He sat down on the couch and Charles drew his chair closer to him, reaching out to touch Logan's face, fingers delicate against his temple.

_What do you need him for?_ Erik thought in confusion.

_Stop being ridiculous and come here_, Charles said. Erik's feet moved of their own volition, bringing him over to sit on the coffee table so the three of them formed a strange mindreading triangle.

_Jealous much? _Logan thought, and Erik could feel the grimy edges of his mind as Charles linked the three of them together. Erik thought some insults in response but Logan didn't react, probably because Charles was filtering him out.

Charles seemed to be ignoring the both of them, his eyes going unfocused with concentration as he reached out and touched Erik's head as well. Erik winced as his fingers brushed past the wound there.

"Ugh, Erik," Charles said, making him turn so he could see the back of his head. "Did you do that yourself? The stitches are all uneven. At least put a plaster over it, for fuck's sake."

In response, Erik snapped off the needle, which was still dangling from the end of the last suture. Charles grimaced in disgust and forced him drop the needle before he could contemplate doing anything dangerous with it.

_You wanted me to talk to someone? _Erik asked, wondering where this strange telepathic circle was going.

_Yes, hold on_, Charles said. _This may feel a bit weird._

Logan winced across from him and then Erik was being _pulled_ somewhere. His mind was dragged along past a swirl of confusing images and moments of pain, brawls he'd never fought in battles that hadn't happened yet, friend he didn't know dying, and cities he'd never seen falling.

It felt like a lifetime or maybe only a split second until he was in a new place. He was lying on his back on a hard table, the metal underneath him too firm and solid for a hallucination.

Erik opened his eyes and found himself blinking in confusion at a panel of lurid brightly colored squares that seemed to flicker and dance in front of him. He squinted and realized that he must be staring at a stained glass window lit by candles. The room felt blurred and vague, like being in a dream where he couldn't focus his eyes and get a clear picture of the world around him no matter how hard he tried.

Erik sat up, rubbing his head as his the lights twisted and multiplied, splitting in two like a drunk seeing double. Where was he?

"You're in the future, you dolt," someone said.

Erik turned slowly, not wanting to give himself vertigo with some unknown threat in the room with him. He tested his powers against the metal slab beneath him and decided that even as disoriented as he was, he could still lift it in a fight.

There were two men on the other side of the room, in front of another stained glass window, one seated and one standing. They seemed old—elderly—the standing man's hair stark white and thin over a deeply lined face. The seated man was turned away from him, but Erik could see from his profile that he was as bald as an egg. He seemed frozen in place, either trapped in a moment in time or held there by Charles' powers. Erik's eyes dropped lower and with a jolt he realized that the chair the man was sitting in was some kind of futuristic wheelchair, floating in place. Focusing on it, Erik discovered a tiny electromagnetic unit underneath the chair that was emitting a strong magnetic field. The design was ingenious, the sort of thing that, given the proper technology and time…

"_You_ might have invented?" the standing man asked, anticipating Erik's line of thought. "You did, genius. I'm you."

"What?" Erik said. "You can't be—you're so old."

The man snorted and Erik studied his face, trying to see his own features there, distorted and weathered by time. He couldn't see any similarity, but he supposed on reflection that the man looked strangely like his grandfather on his mother's side. The wavy coif of white hair was certainly the same.

"Get used to it," the older man said, gesturing to his hair with one hand. "When it goes, it'll all go gray at once."

"You… wanted to speak to me?" Erik asked.

"Well, not exactly," the man said, looking away. "But I was afraid I might have to and it seems my concerns were correct." He paused and made a rough throat-clearing noise, the same sort of noise that Erik's grandfather used to make. "Are you screwing this up, son?"

His tone was nettling and dismissive, and Erik's confusion was soon swept away by a wave of irritation. "What?" Erik said. "No, I don't think I'm the one who let robots take over the future."

"Actually, you have," the man said, raising his eyebrows like a teacher emphasizing a point during a lecture. "Believe me, you have."

"Is that why I'm here?" Erik asked snarling a little at the man's condescension. "So you can warn me about the terrible future I'll create if I don't listen to Logan and Charles?"

"I don't need to tell you about that," the man said. "You already know all about it. It's the stuff of your nightmares, all the scenarios that keep you up at night. I'm here to tell you they all come true. Every one of them—the worst of them. Experimentation, mass extermination, extinction, it all happens. And it's exactly as terrible as you imagined."

"Are you expecting to shock me?" Erik asked. He tried to stand up and felt rush of dizziness, the colored lights beginning to spin again. He had to lean back and rest heavily against the table behind him.

"No, that's exactly my point," the man said. "You're right. Things go to hell and what you're doing right now? The path you're on? It's going to make it worse. But-do you know what I'd have given to have a second chance like this?" The old man sighing and turned away, his eyes dropping to look at the man behind him. "To be out of prison early and with Charles still willing to talk to me? To have a chance to reconcile?"

Erik was tempted to ask how long he was in prison in the first timeline, but instead he said, "I'm not screwing anything up, I'm trying to solve the mess _you_ created by screwing up the future."

"On your own?" He made the disdainful sound Erik had used to dismiss countless fools in the past. "Listen, whatever your plan is, it's a bad idea."

"How do you know? You've never been me." At least, not in so far as Erik understands the mechanics of time travel. They're different people now, a separate fork in the same river.

"It took many hard years of reflection," the man said, acting like he hadn't heard Erik. Maybe he was hard of hearing. "But I finally had to accept that all of the plans I came up with alone were uniformly terrible. You're not a good strategist and the sooner you learn to accept that, the better off the entire mutant race will be."

Erik scoffed, irritation blooming into outright anger. "Don't take it out on me just because you've grown soft, old man."

"Soft?" he said, his voice rising. "I haven't gone soft! I learned when strength is better joined in number. And when it's better to listen rather than stay locked in obstinacy. For _instance_, when your future self tells you not to repeat the same terrible mistakes he did."

"Who says I can do anything differently?" Erik snapped, the hard edge of the table trembling against his back. "You've wasted your last energy trying to change the future, but who says that's even possible? No matter how you change the material circumstances involved, we're still two species fighting for supremacy where only one can win. You haven't changed the outcome, only the equation that leads to it."

The old man shook his head, denying Erik flatly. "No, it is possible. We've done it. We've used it to stay ahead of the sentinels, fighting them, even dying at their hands, and then escaping as if they'd never found us in the first place."

"That's not changing anything!" Erik said. "That's procrastination! One day the sentinels _will_ kill you. You're only postponing your inevitable deaths. Just as with Trask's death—his assassination. We may have changed that specific event, but we've only postponed the war to come. The timing and the instigating moment may change, but the war will still come. All you've done is convince me that it must be at a time of our choosing. We need to strike first, to gain control before humanity can rally to prevent their own extinction."

The old man shook his head again, refusing to listen. "No, no, of all the stubborn idiocy—don't you understand?" He turned and started to walk away, pressing his hands to his head in frustration.

Erik turned away from him as well, grinding his teeth and trying to will himself back to the present. _Charles? Enough, bring me back. _He closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly only to be disappointed when he opened them again to the same claustrophobic room with the riot of colored light.

"Angel," the man said, speaking with his back to Erik, his hands folded behind him. Erik looked at him in confusion, not sure he'd heard right until he continued. "Azazel, Emma, Banshee." He turned then, striding back up to Erik, his voice growing louder as he recited the same names Erik had listed to Charles a lifetime ago yesterday. "_Mystique_."

He stopped, looking at Erik like he was expecting some response. Erik doesn't give it to him, trying to keep his face blank.

"I remember them, even now, fifty years later," the man said. "Because for years I repeated them to myself over and over, stewing as I sat trapped, imagining how I would avenge them. How I would make their deaths meaningful. When I finally escaped, do you know what I did instead?"

Erik wanted to argue with him, to find some way of derailing this conversation, but instead he found himself shaking his head, words gone.

"Instead I only added to the list. Every year, more names to remember, more brothers and sisters sacrificed for the cause. Even some I put there myself." He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table on each side of Erik. "That's how it goes. The list just keeps getting longer and longer, with more and more mutants dead, until the day you decide you've had enough. But by then it's too late. And there will be so many more names, Erik… so many more."

Erik stared at him, feeling like he was looking into a mirror transformed, his own face looking back aged and so very tired. "What else is there to do?" he asked.

"Go back," the man said, resting one wrinkled hand on Erik's arm. "Help Charles. Find those other mutants, gather them together and this time _protect_ them."

"What happens if—what if it still happens?" he asked.

The old man smiled, his thin papery skin folding into a new layer of wrinkles as his face turned kind. "Be ready. It's possible to be ready for the worst without hurrying its coming. Teach them to protect themselves, and…be ready."

He stepped back from Erik, turning to return to the bald man's side. Erik looked around, expecting to be rushed back to the present, but apparently his future self still has one last bit of advice to impart.

"Also, by the way," the man said, looking back over his shoulder. "We're not a separate species. Another thing it took many years—and _children_—to accept. Birth control," he added, wagging a finger at Erik as the room began to spin and he felt a tug pulling him back. "Try to remember that."

A few disorienting seconds or lifetimes later, Erik found himself back on the couch, sitting across from Charles in the same position as he had left.

"How was the future?" Charles asked, his fingers still hot against Erik's face.

"Terrible," Erik said. "You were bald."

Logan snorted at this and stood up, his knees cracking. Charles, on the other hand, pressed his lips together like he was trying very hard to be unamused. "I noticed that during my own trip there, thanks."

Erik shrugged and moved his head, brushing Charles' fingers away. Charles leaned back, but stayed in front of him, waiting and watching Erik's face like he was expecting something more from him. Erik clenched his jaw, hating the predictability of his change of heart. "I suppose, in light of what—I was told. Maybe we should work together on this Trask thing. Finding Mystique again, I mean."

"Really work together?" Logan asked. "No more surprise plans you want to spring on us at the last minute there, bub?"

Erik's jaw twitched but he nodded, looking at Charles. "At least, for the time being. Until we see if we're successful or not."

"Are you sure?" Charles asked, glancing down at the roll of microfilm still lying on the coffee table.

Erik lifted it up into the air and caught it in the palm of one hand, pocketing the canister. "My plan needs time for refinement anyway, to work out the details. It can wait a few months."

"Or years," Logan said.

Erik cleared his throat, dismayed to realize he sounded like his own grandfather. "Assuming we can't prevent the sentinel program through... other means."

The corner of Charles' mouth lifted slightly, the first smile Erik has seen from him since escaping prison. "Let's hope we can, my friend," he said. "Let's hope we can."


End file.
